distortions in the domestic development of each of the countries: on the Soviet part a sort of blind anti-imperialism, as they put it; on our part perhaps an unquestioning anticommunism. There has been a neglect of domestic needs on both sides and in a sense bureaucracies have grown up in each camp devoted to conducting the cold war. But now, as a matter of fact. as a result of the 25 years of effort that each side has put into this situation, and while an atmosphere of cold war in a sense still continues, we find that the underlying terrain between the two antagonists, or protagonists, has actually changed a great deal. The situation has developed from one in which there was this vacuum which nobody knew how to fill to a situation in which there is between the two great powers hardly any vacuum at all. Certainly this is true in regard to Europe, where the stability of the relationships between East and West are now so well perceived by almost everybody that there is a great deal of activity on both sides of the once Iron Curtain to try to work out new relationships on the basis of this understanding that a new order, so to speak, in Europe, has come about. Somewhat similar developments, perhaps less firm and concrete, have taken place in Northeast Asia where the relationship among the Soviet Union, United States, Korea, and Japan has become much more stable in recent years; and even in other parts of the world such as the Middle East the two countries are feeling their way toward a sort of modus vivendi to replace a vacuum that had become very apparent with the departure of British and French power in the 1940's and 1950's. Now, because of this great change in the situation that has come about in a sense through the cold war, almost in spite of the cold war, it has become possible at last for a President of the United States, President Nixon, to declare that we are entering a hopeful era of negotiations in our relationship with the Soviet Union. In effect, then, through the various facets of the cold war a new, if imperfect, world order has come into being to replace the one which disappeared in the course of two World Wars. This new world order is based on national big power decisions rather than on international institutions. Yet it has allowed relationships to be worked out again among the free world countries, and has laid the ground rules for peaceful if not always harmonious intercourse between the free world and the Soviet sphere. In other words, a power vacuum has been dissipated, even though it has taken the cold war to do it, and as both sides have accepted this the fundamental impulses that both we and the Soviet Union had in the 1940's and 1950's to fill the void and hence to clash with each other, are no longer operative. We still have, of course, the problems of the institutional hangover, the bureaucratic phrases that developed in the course of the cold war and we have the general problems that arise from the great internal and philosophical divergence between us and the Soviet Union. But once the major impulse to war, that is to say, this breakdown of the international order, has ceased to be the dominant factor, there is hope that the lesser aspects, the psychological aspects, the general points of friction between us can also be tackled in a much more successful way. Thank you. Mr. ROSENTHAL. Mr. Morse. STATEMENT OF JOHN H. MORSE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR EUROPEAN AND NATO AFFAIRS Grade and effective date: GS-18-December 1, 1969. Born: May 20, 1910. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO AffairsDecember 1, 1969 to present. Other Government experience: 1950-52-Staff Naval War College, Lecturer on weapon systems, defense studies, nuclear weapons, planning and strategy. 1952-56--Head Nuclear Planning Section, SHAPE Headquarters. 1956-60-Special Assistant to Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (GS-17). Major non-Government experience: Technical Specialist, Aerojet-General Corporation (Long Range Planning Division), June 1960-April 1963. Senior Operations Analyst, Stanford Research Institute, April 1963-December 1969. Education: 1927-28-Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, S.C. 1940-41-Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., M.S. Aero. Eng. Military service: June 1928-January 1959 (Retired as a Captain in U.S. Navy). Mr. MORSE. Mr. Chairman, if it is in accordance with your desires, I would suggest that I follow the same procedure as Mr. Mark. Mr. ROSENTHAL. All right. (Mr. Morse's prepared statement follows:) STATEMENT OF JOHN H. MORSE. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR EUROPEAN AND NATO AFFAIRS Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: It is indeed a pleasure to participate in hearings which seek to shed additional light on very complex problems in their historical context, and from varied points of view. We often neglect both of these elements-and so deny ourselves the broad perspective which is essential if we are to preserve our vital security interests over the next 10 years— most particularly in Europe. The outline enclosed in the Chairman's May 21 letter of invitation indicated that you would hear this morning from historians and political scientists on the origins of U.S.-Soviet policy differences following World War II. This afternoon I am to give a version of how the past affects today's policies. If I understand your guidance correctly, you are not interested in a detailed explanation of today's policies, but rather a description and justification from the broad viewpoint of international security. Although I am sure that this morning's witnesses have given you a skillful synopsis of events since World War II, I believe it useful to give a brief outline of how the past looks to those who are responsible to some degree for present policies. This opening statement perforce confines itself to a brief discussion of major trends and a few of the more significant events since World War II-only enough to raise questions for subsequent further development at your pleasure. This means addressing only the major changes that have occurred in U.S. thinking and that of Europe with regard to the threat and to desirable counterstrategies, and some of the major moves that occurred on both sides, partly or wholly as a consequence. One thing that has not changed in the U.S.-European relationship is the fact that a friendly Europe is our first foreign policy concern. In his foreign policy report to the Congress last year, President Nixon said that ". . . in the third decade of our commitment to Europe, the depth of our relationship is a fact of life. We can no more disengage from Europe than Alaska." I need only mention American economic and commercial interests in Europe, and our fundamental cultural and historical ties. More important for this committee are American political and security interests. Two bloody world wars showed us that the United States cannot separate itself from what happens in Europe. We tried isolation after the First World War, which merely led us to the Second World War. We learned from that one that we could not allow a hostile power to dominate the continent. We all recall the great feeling of relief with which the United States hastened to demobilize at the end of World War II. Attitudes in both the United States and Western Europe unfortunately had to adjust rapidly during the period 1946-50from a natural desire to trust allies and to relax, once the war was over, to deep concerns and expensive military build-ups, despite the impoverished state of Europe in those days. Examples of this rapid change in thinking are to be found in the Baruch Plan, which offered to turn over our nuclear expertise of that day to an international agency under proper safeguards; the Truman Doctrine, which was designed to support free peoples who resist subjugation and which made possible direct financial aid to Greece and Turkey, and the Marshall Plan, under which we offered to help in the economic rehabilitation of Europe and invited Soviet participation (quickly rejected). It becomes apparent also that the United States and Western Europe could organize a better defense collectively than they could separately. This conviction led to the formation of NATO, and the rapid build-up of U.S. and NATO military forces, some of which had just been dismantled. It is sometimes difficult in the present atmosphere to remember the dramatic events that convinced Free World leaders that Soviet expansionist moves would continue unless opposed by effective counterforce of some kind. These impressions arose from such incidents as Soviet moves against Iran and Greece, and the rapid extension of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe, culminating most dramatically with Czechoslavakia and the Berlin blockade in 1948. Soviet development of an atomic bomb was also an important factor in shaping opinions. This impression of a serious Soviet threat to the greatly weakened nations of Europe was so telling that the free nations of Europe and North America were able to undertake the great initiatives I mentioned, which were wholly at variance with their previous experience. This drastic and rapid change of thinking on our part after World War II was largely completed in 1950. The Soviet-backed invasion of South Korea was the final shock. It led to our decision to send to Europe roughly the same number of combat forces that we now maintain. From that time forward we have seen unprecedented levels of defense expenditures that have endured for an unprecedented time. There has been no real change in this respect since 1950, except for changing ideas of desirable strategy on our part, and some changes in the level and types of military forces on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Some observers conclude that the Soviet Union has never deviated from a basic strategy of keeping large conventional forces, of putting high priority on building up its nuclear capabilities, and of utilizing the blunt or latent threat which such conventional and nuclear forces represent to provide additional political options and maneuver room wherever it seemed appropriate and safe to do so. Suppression of the East German, Hungarian and Polish uprisings, the Cuban missile crisis, the recent invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the even more recent expansion of Soviet interest in the Middle East are regarded by some as moves entirely consistent with such long standing Soviet policies and strategies. Those who hold this point of view are also concerned about the unprecedented expansion of Soviet naval and maritime shipping capabilities, and their deployment world-wide for the first time in history. Thus the NATO Ministers in December judged that Warsaw Pact forces were already at levels well beyond those needed for purely defensive and deterrent purposes. It is possible to say logically that such moves represent only a normal search for more elbow and maneuvering room by a great and growing nation which has no hostile designs on the rest of the world. Considering its unfortunate history, we can sympathize with the Soviet Union's obsessive desire for a belt of security around it. It is at the same time obvious, however, that if the Soviet Union wishes to do so, it can use its growing world-wide power and presence for other purposes. It is surely not illogical to conclude that the record gives little reassurance as to what Soviet intentions really are. The policy maker cannot wait for the historian to analyze those intentions. He has no choice but to take the conservative and careful approach to national security requirements that our postwar experience justifies. 65-493-71-5 Somewhat in contrast to this interpretation of long term Soviet military defense policies, U.S. and NATO strategies have varied widely as our thinking about nuclear weapons and the willingness to bear the burdens of conventional forces have changed from time to time. The initial thinking on both sides of the Atlantic in the early days of NATO was to rely almost entirely upon conventional forces for defense. I might point out incidentally that NATO is a defensive alliance; it provides for collective self-defense only when a member is attacked. The original idea of reliance upon conventional forces was never fully realized, because the force goals which military commanders recommended were far beyond the reach of recently devastated Europe, even with all the help that the United States could then offer. Consequently, as the U.S. nuclear capability grew, a strategy called massive retaliation and a tripwire concept for Europe developed to meet the perceived needs of both the United States and Europe. The thinking here was that the existing forces along the front would suffice to trigger massive nuclear retaliation in the event of an attack; NATO would thus avoid having to raise large and expensive conventional forces, regardless of how many the other side might have. This concept achieved deterrence for a time, or at least we can say there was no invasion of NATO territory and no outbreak of hostilities in Europe during this period. On the other hand, it was a valid strategy only so long as the United States had the clear nuclear superiority which made a strategic nuclear response credible in a wide range of possible contingencies. The Kennedy Administration drastically altered this concept, in large part because of a desire to lessen dependence upon nuclear weapons. “Massive retaliation" was losing credibility as the Soviet capability for retaliation grew. This overriding concern led the Kennedy/Johnson Administrations and then NATO to a strategy of "flexible response." In some respects this was a move back to the idea of NATO's early days of greater reliance upon conventional forces, backed by convincing tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. It did not, however, take full account of the costs of conventional forces needed to reach a rough balance with the Warsaw Pact. Neither did it anticipate the rapid escalation of such costs on both sides of the Atlantic that time has brought, nor did it calculate the relatively lesser costs that equivalent conventional forces represent for the Warsaw Pact. The last quarter century has thus been a period of relative military stability in Europe, steady Soviet/Warsaw Pact military build-up, and changes in U.S. NATO strategic thinking. During the same period, the Western European nations recovered from the war and went on to a higher stage of development. Almost without general awareness of what was happening, Europe rebuilt its economic and industrial strength. In some fields today Europeans surpass the United States. In some respects their domestic problems are less difficult than ours, even if quite similar to those which bother us. Affluence is widespread; worries about environmental pollution are growing; every country has trouble with the generation gap and hostility toward the "military-industrial complex"; military service is unpopular in most of Europe-at least among the young. The natural longing for detente grows stronger as the desire for and the means to achieve the good things of life increase. This brings us to the present. The United States still has large forces in Europe despite, and in some ways because of, the changes of the last 25 years. The approximately 300,000 men now in or near Europe is not an immutable number. It ran as high as 434,000 during the 1961-62 Berlin crisis; the present approximate level was reached in 1968. In order to be sure that this number corresponded to U.S. security interests and to the proper relationship with our European Allies, President Nixon last year had a review made in the National Security Council system, covering all the issues of European security. The Alliance concurrently launched a similar study. The result of the U.S. and NATO analyses was a reaffimation of NATO's strategy of flexible response. As the President reported to you in February, the studies showed that the NATO nations are considerably stronger than the Warsaw Pact in military potential, but that the balance in actual conventional forces in Europe is much closer. "NATO's active forces in peacetime are roughly comparable to those of the Warsaw Pact," the President said, but the Pact has a considerable advantage in mobilization. The NATO study concluded that the Alliance has the basic resources for an adequate conventional defense but that the forces for a direct defense against conventional aggression are barely enough. Improvements at an acceptable cost in a few key areas would make an Alliance conventional defense much more credible, and the Alliance members pledged themselves to make such improvements. It was against this background that President Nixon in December told our European Allies that, given a similar approach by them, the United States would maintain and improve its forces in Europe and not reduce them without reciprocal action by our adversaries. These exhaustive studies had shown that the contribution of U.S. forces-about a quarter of NATO's peacetime capabilities in the crucial Central front-ensures the viability of the strategy of flexible response. As President Nixon said: "It enables us to found Alliance defense on something other than reliance on the threat of strategic nuclear war. It is the basis of our Allies' confidence in us. It links European defense to a common strategy and to the nuclear power of the United States." The level of U.S. forces in Europe is thus important not only for the military balance. It also has a profound political-psychological significance. The fact that Europeans regard the present level of U.S. forces as crucial must affect our decisions on this matter. This state of European thinking, and the impetus toward a possible mutual reduction of forces that maintaining our forces at the present level might provide, are also important reasons for maintaining those troop levels. On the other hand, we lose no opportunity to point out to our Allies that they must carry more of the burden of European defense. That defense is of mutual concern theirs as much as ours. Our European Allies realize this and are taking on more of the Alliance defense burden. We also seek to remedy over time if we can what some view as the European inferiority complex with regard to the Warsaw Pact. I am sure you will agree that this is a delicate and difficult task at best, and hardly amenable to shock treatment. Some astute observers, a few of them European, maintain that the sooner we put Europe largely on its own in defense matters the better we will all be. Some hold this view even as they recognize the binding nature for NATO of American nuclear preponderance in the Free World-a dominance we have kept to ourselves as a matter of consistent policy. Others tend to overlook the fact that for us to loosen this crucial tie to Europe is difficult if not impossible at this stage of history. I have been told by Europeans that the United States faces a difficult task in keeping them sufficiently confident and reassured to avoid panic and bolting toward the East, while at the same time keeping them uneasy enough to assure that they take an increasing share of the responsibilities and measures for mutual defense. If this is valid reasoning, we can probably agree that this situation presents any U.S. President with a difficult and probably shifting dilemma. In dealing with it President Nixon has emphasized the principles of partnership, strength and negotiation in order to maintain strong and cohesive alliances which strengthen deterrence. We make no attempt to dictate to Europeans the strategy which they should adopt. On the contrary, it is present U.S. policy to lay out the problem and our thinking and our ideas as to possible solutions so far and as accurately as we can, and invite European comments and cooperation toward common objectives of realistic deterrence over the next decade. We also encourage, as our predecessors have, moves toward closer European cooperation and integration, despite the decreased U.S. influence and increasing competition which such developments can mean for us. I spoke earlier of the policy makers' need to take a conservative and careful approach. As he looks at current problems, he must keep in mind that they reflect the trends, the institutions, and the relationships developed since the war. The security of the nation, and of the world, is in his hands. He must think very hard before making the bold gesture, the sudden change in policy that may not be warranted by the cold facts of experience. Yet he cannot be content with merely perpetuating the policy that he inherited. With all due humility, he must be sure that the brilliant policy decision of a decade ago has not turned today into a pallid cliche. This Administration believes strongly that the United States and its Allies in Europe must maintain a strong force that will deter any level of conflict or defend successfully should trouble come. The United States' European policy has given us peace and reasonable stability. But real stability, if such is possible at all, will come only through the resolution of the basic problems. We must always have in mind the distant aim of a European settlement that satisfies both sides' |